Cars are taxed. It's sometimes called a "titling tax" or "registration fee" and in other cases its called a sales tax. Unless you happen to maintain a car in a state that doesn't require one to have a license plate on car you use on public roads, you pay a tax on your car. And think of the ways in which car taxes are used to provide information that abets a variety of ends:
- Car sellers use the tracking to identify the accident history of used cars.
- Insurance companies use the registration information as a factor in determining one's auto insurance premium.
- Law enforcement organizations and officers use it in the process of identifying and tracking down specific vehicles.
- Some car owners use it to express their affinity for "this or that." (vanity plates)
- As for more specific ways in which state governments use car tax revenues, you'll have to review the budget of whatever state interests you. I suspect that for some states car taxes/fees are classed as general fund revenue and as such fund all sorts of things, and in others the monies are classed as special fund revenues and are allocated to fairly specific programs.
Some states have additional taxes, beyond sales and/or registration and titling tax, associated with cars. For instance,
VA counties and cities levy a personal property tax and for many residents, their car is the one thing they pay it on.
Insofar as taxes on cars are extant, the answer to your question necessarily must, insofar as insurance companies, most (if not all) state governments, many individuals and businesses are abetted in some way by the fact of cars being taxed, be resoundingly "yes."